Yesterday, I met my neighbor who helped me to charge the battery. First, we charged the battery for 1 hour. I checked with multimer and the battery voltage was like 12.6 after being charged. It didn't work. Second, we tried to jumpstart the car. It didn't work either. There is no clicking, no cranking, nothing.

No clicking, no cranking, no nothing.

Start with the terminals, remove the cables, clean, put a dialectric grease on them, or just conver them with Vaseline when they're assembled. Check the lead to the starter, make sure it's clean and good.

Check the specific gravity of ALL the cells of the battery. You can show 12 volts across the top, no problem, but if you have a dry hole, or a specific gravity off on one or two cells, it won't be enough to crank.

My guess is you're just froze up...some cars are more susceptible than others. I have had cars that would freeze solid at sero, and some that start just fine at -30 Fahrenheit.

Suggestion.

Get an old-fashioned oil change pan, the kind made out of metal, or even just a heavy piece of sheet metal that you can bend an edge onto. Pile some charcoal on it, just like you were grilling burgers, and fire em up. Let them burn down real good, no open flame, and slide em under the oilpan of your car, after making sure there is no plastic they can cook! Leave it for 10-20 minutes and start it up.

I use to live in Fairbanks and found that when it gets that cold it helps a lot to have a heating pad under your battery(don't use the blanket that wraps around your battery). When it gets down to -40 it's almost a necessity. Might as well add a block heater and transmission heater too.

If -20 is as cold as it gets there this might be kind of an overkill but the block heater allows your engine to warm up faster, no dought it lengthens the life of your engine.

If charging the battery didn't work sounds like you have bigger problems. If the connections are all good including the ground it's probably a bad starter.

Yesterday, I met my neighbor who helped me to charge the battery. First, we charged the battery for 1 hour. I checked with multimer and the battery voltage was like 12.6 after being charged. It didn't work. Second, we tried to jumpstart the car. It didn't work either. There is no clicking, no cranking, nothing.

Sorry I missed this post. If it won't turn over with jumper cables attached to a known hot battery then there is something else wrong.

What kind of vehicle is it.

You said something about the lights having some kind of delay before coming on. Sounds like a ground issue to me.

Take your volt meter and set it to ohms. Put one end on the negative terminal and the other on the exhaust manifold. If you get and more than 0.2 ohms you have a ground issue. Could be a relay, the ignition switch, stater, etc. Sounds like a ground with the lights, though.

Ok thanks for the replies. I brought my battery at Canadian Tire and had it tested. It passed the test. What I am going to do now is pay a guy to change the starter, hoping this is the source of the problem.

Hi, I just solved the problem! I replaced the starter. I swore a lot, because it was in a difficult spots full of wires and pipes and difficult to access, but I finally installed the new starter and now the car works. I brought the old starter at a store and got it tested on a machine : it was dead. Thank you for all the advice and help.